A fine tuning for Pats

Sunday

Tom Brady brought something with him to Carolina from Los Angeles, where he'd flown to be with his former girlfriend, actress Bridget Moynahan, for the birth of their baby boy on Wednesday.

A Hollywood script.

“I thought Tom did a nice job,” New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said following Friday night's 24-7 romp at Bank of America Stadium. “I thought he handled some adjustments well. Carolina blitzed him a little bit. I think he did a good job of handling that and he threw the ball fairly well.”

At this point, it can accurately be reported that parenthood seems to be agreeing with Brady, who missed practice in Foxboro Wednesday to fly to the West Coast, then flew back east to Carolina in time to put on a show Friday night.

Playing into the third quarter, the 30-year-old Brady completed 17 of 22 passes for 167 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions, compiling a quarterback rating of 128.4 before turning a 17-7 lead over to backup Matt Cassel.

“I thought it was a much better effort running the ball than it was in the first couple of games, and I thought overall we defended the running game with some consistency,” Belichick said in a media conference call on Saturday.

“There are certainly a lot of things we can do better on both our run defense and our running game, but I thought it was definitely a step in the right direction. I thought we did a decent job, defensively, getting off the field.

Looking for a downer?

It was too bad the Patriots “wasted” an all-around effort like this on a preseason game.

Looking for a problem area?

That would be the place-kicking game. A week after missing from 33 yards in a 27-24 loss to Tennessee, second-year man Stephen Gostkowski missed two out of three field-goal attempts against the Panthers, hooking them wide left from 53 and 46 yards out to slip to 3-for-6 this summer.

“Obviously, every kicker would like to make all his kicks,” Belichick said. “The two last night he missed were a couple feet from being in. I think it's a small error. One of them was on a long kick.

“We just have to be a little more accurate and get those through. The margin for error on those two was not very big. It was not good enough, but I don't think it's that far off.”

On the flip side, the Patriots had to have Panthers place-kicker John Kasay hearing foot steps after nose tackle Vince Wilfork and defensive end Jarvis Green got enough of a surge to block attempts by him from 49 and 43 yards away.

While Brady was picking the Panthers apart, second-year running back Laurence Maroney, who has been nursed along in the aftermath of offseason shoulder surgery, got some extensive work at the outset.

Maroney carried the ball on eight of the Patriots' first nine plays from scrimmage, with the other being a run by backup Sammy Morris, and finished the night with 15 carries for 58 yards.

While Maroney handled the bulk of the workload, Heath Evans was the best back on the field, carrying seven times for 58 yards and one touchdown and catching two passes for 19 yards and another score.

After allowing Brady to get bounced around in alarming style by the Titans, the offensive line showed vast improvement, keeping his jersey and those of his three backups (Cassel, Vinny Testaverde and Matt Gutierrez) clean.

New punter Danny Baugher averaged 40.7 yards on three attempts and longshot free agent C.J. Jones continued to exhibit some flash in the return game, taking a kickoff back 29 yards and returning one of Jason Baker's five punts 19 yards.

Defenders in the Patriots' Draft Class of 2007 made some favorable accounts of themselves.

First-rounder Brandon Meriweather totaled a team-high five tackles and fourth-rounder Kareem Brown was credited with four stops while sixth-rounders Justin Rogers had a 14-yard sack and a quarterback hit and Mike Richardson tallied two tackles and one pass defensed.

Seventh-rounder Oscar Lua also picked off one pass, broke up another and made a couple of tackles.

Richardson may have paid the price for his activity, however, as he was seen by reporters in the locker room after the game with his left arm in a sling.

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